


Shots

by utsu



Series: Between the Trees [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Drunkenness, F/M, Fluff and Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 16:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11581845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/utsu/pseuds/utsu
Summary: NejiTen Prompt: I might have had a few shots.





	1. Chapter 1

Tenten opens her door to find Hyuuga Neji lilting on her doorstep, singing the blues. It’s early enough that the sun has yet to rise, and Tenten is still in her pajamas, but there’s Neji, and he’s hiccupping.

“Neji?” she asks, with barely restrained irritation. Neji turns abruptly over his shoulder and says, “Shhh!”

Tenten mentally counts to ten, because she is not about to commit murder before the sun has hit the sky. Not even on Neji.

“What,” she says, saccharine sweet, “are you doing here?”

Neji squints at her, apparently deciding whether or not he should be legitimately upset that she disobeyed him. After a few moments of him staring at her, his eyes widen and he scrambles to his feet, nearly missing a step and falling back three more, but he catches himself with a grace only a Hyuuga could retain while drunk.

“ _Tenten_ ,” he says, almost reverently, like he hadn’t just shushed her. Tenten realizes with a sudden pounding behind her left eyebrow that he’s not drunk, he’s hammered, and he’s only just recognized her. “Hello.”

“Hello.” She returns, leaning her hip against the doorjamb. “You’re in fine form this morning.”

Neji winces, and Tenten is pleased to note that her acknowledged presence in his life is enough of a sobering event to reinstate his sense of dignity.

“Returned from a mission last night,” he explains, and Tenten debates counting to ten again.

“I know,” she says. “I was on it.”

Neji winces again, swaying slightly. He seems to have an internal debate for a few moments, long enough for Tenten to sigh, cross her arms over her chest, and wonder if she should threaten him. She decides not to, if only because some sick part of her—probably the exhausted part—is amused, and wants this kind of ammunition in the future. When Neji sobers up, this is something she’s going to want to hold over his head, vindictive and pleased. She doesn’t know what she hopes for more: that he won’t remember a thing, and she’ll have free reign to remind him, or that he remembers bits and pieces, and she can have some fun with what he disdainfully offers her.

“Lee,” he says heavily, after a long moment of contemplation. And then he leaves it at that, and Tenten isn’t certain if he’s lost his train of thought or if that was supposed to be explanation enough.

“Lee?” she asks.

“Lee,” he nods, then, “took me out—took me to a bar.”

Tenten has to forcefully stifle her laughter, which is _so difficult_ , because Neji had almost just admitted to Lee taking him out on the _town_ , and she wished she’d thought to record this. She still could, probably, but she has a great memory anyways.

“And you drank.” _A lot_.

Neji purses his lips, mulling this over as though he has any way of arguing or negating her statement. After a long moment of him squinting against the gradually brightening day, reflected off of the cream white of her apartment, and a lot of focus going into keeping him upright, he submits to her expectant stare.

“I might have had a few shots.”

“A few,” Tenten repeats, snorting. “Okay. And I have a few weapons.”

Neji misses her point entirely, and says with all the subtlety of someone with inhibited motor functions, “You’re beautiful.”

Tenten eyes him skeptically, and pretends that her heart doesn’t pound ever harder.

“You’re drunk, you know?”

“Yes,” he says, humble and serene in his inebriation. “And you’re beautiful.”

“Did you suddenly realize you fucked up? And now you’re trying to save face with compliments? Subpar technique, Neji. You’re gonna have to work harder than that.”

“May I kiss you?” he asks, and just like that Tenten feels at a loss. She doesn’t know how he does that, even _drunk_ ; it’s so easy for him to completely flip the odds in his favor. He probably doesn’t even know what he’s _doing_ , and that infuriates her.

“No, you may not.” She says, and pulls away from the door frame. She repeats, for his benefit and hers, “You’re drunk.”

“And if I wasn’t?” he asks, taking a step closer, until there’s only a foot left between them. She has to look up into his eyes now that they’re on equal footing, and that’s always been something that drove her nuts. Now, however, for some reason it feels thrilling. It’s sudden, the way she wishes he were sober, and that this conversation was happening with all cylinders firing appropriately.

“Damn you for doing this,” she whispers, brows pursing with frustration. She can’t stay mad for long, though, because Neji looks a few seconds from falling over and he wants to _kiss_ her, so she steps to the side of her door and gestures in towards her living room.

“Come in,” she says, “You can sleep in my living room.”

He hesitates for only a second before he steps over the threshold. She slides the door shut behind him with a sigh, and expects to find him either on the couch already or flat on the floor, snoring, when she turns around.

What she finds instead is him a step away, reaching for her. She lets him grasp her arm—and he’s gentle, even without inhibitions—and he pulls until she’s snug against his chest, her head tucked safely under his chin.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, sounding more sober now that he’s inside her home, inside her space. She presses her nose against his throat, the pale column of it surprisingly warm. He’s cut like a marble statue, so it’s surprising at times when she’s reminded with bodily contact that he runs hot and human, just like everyone else.

He says, “Tomorrow, I’d like to kiss you.”

Tenten only leans further into him, before pulling away and leading him towards the couch.

“Sleep,” she whispers. “You’re going to have the worst hangover.”

He doesn’t say anything, just settles as gracefully as he can onto her cushions, and watches her walk from the room. She slides her bedroom door shut behind her and leans against it, and in the privacy of her own room she brings a hand up to her lips.

If she closes her eyes and puts her mind to it, she can _almost_ feel the weight of his mouth.

 

✧

 

Tenten wakes up early the next afternoon and makes Neji hangover food, greasy and hefty, because she’s a damned good friend. She’d be an even better girlfriend if he’d just get over himself and ask her on a date, instead of being so obsessed with being the perfect shinobi, with his perfect hair, and his perfect _face_.

She stabs into the eggs she’s scrambling a little harder than she should, but they’re intact regardless. She hears a groan from the living room, and then footsteps approaching.

“Good morning sunshine,” she calls over her shoulder, not turning to look at what she knows will be his composed sobriety. Leave it to Neji to make a hangover look glamorous. He doesn’t respond to her, which isn’t surprising, and when she hears his steps cross the kitchen, she doesn’t expect much to come of it.

The last thing she expects are his hands sliding around her waist, and his chin hooking over her shoulder. Her hands still and the vibrations of his voice run through her, down her spin in a cascade of chills.

“Are you making me breakfast?”

“You don’t deserve it,” she snaps, trying to remain calm with him hanging all over her. He’s not touchy, normally, and he doesn’t like when people invade his personal space. Usually he respects this of others, as well; not that she’s particularly complaining. “But yes, I am.”

He hums against her, and for a moment she thinks he’ll back off, and it’ll be another spoof, just like so many others. But he doesn’t, not at all; he nuzzles his nose against her jaw line and then her neck, right at her pulse, and he presses his lips there for a beat longer than she’d ever even hoped for.

“Thank you,” he says, and he sounds _smug_ , that bastard. She prepares to growl something unsavory at him, because he hasn’t upset her enough for her to take the kunai she’s scrambling his eggs with and throw it at him, but he’s toeing the line.

Before she can, however, he leans back in and presses one last kiss to her throat, and he says, “For dessert, I want that kiss.”

Tenten is going to use the kunai, but after the kiss.

After.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NejiTen Prompt: Teacher and student (adults).  
> 

 There’s something subtly gentle about him, and it catches her eyes.

He walks into the room and his eyes, colorless and depthless, pierce the very air around them. They trail over the chairs and the students within them, and silence falls in a palpable hush over their heads. Only the striking sound of sandals over wood can be heard, as he finds his place behind his desk. He sets his folders on the polished surface, brushes his fingertips over their edges slowly, carefully, almost sinfully.

Tenten shivers in her seat.

Hyuga Neji straightens those edges, those papers, and it makes Tenten want to laugh that he’s so anal, so strict, but she watches with caught breath as his fingertips slide so deliberately along the edge of the desk afterwards and she can’t make a single sound.

“I trust you’ve all done your reading,” he says calmly, turning his back to them. He lifts a brand new piece of chalk to the board and scrawls his name in smooth, flawless calligraphy. Tenten watches the play of muscles moving over his shoulders, his back, and grips her own pen hard enough for it to _snap_. It doesn’t, though, because she has more control than that.

She has always been strict with herself; she has regimens and routines she follows to keep her in shape; in mind, body, and spirit. She is intelligent, sure, but her true strength is in her _cunning_. Mind games are something of a trait that run in her blood, and her family has always helped to craft her mind into something beautiful, in just the same way a blade is beautiful—in it’s sharpness and it’s lethality.

It’s a matter of pride, then, that she remain unperturbed, despite the circumstances. She doesn’t shy away from feeling, or from emotion—they make her _stronger_ , fuel her blood and get it hot enough to let her mind run smooth and _quick_ , and she enjoys that.

So it is not upsetting, exactly, that her professor has an inherent way of unsettling her, without even looking directly at her. It’s more of a frustration, a challenge, and maybe it sets her teeth on edge, but she likes it.

She _smiles_.

 

✧

 

He teaches by example, and doesn’t speak overly much. Tenten likes the sound of his voice about as much as she likes the way his arms flex beneath his traditional hakama. They’re loose enough to be deceptive, but Tenten has a sharp eye, and she watches carefully.

She is rewarded quite often for it.

His voice fluctuates between intense and scrutinizing, depending on the student’s input, and Tenten lets it slide over her skin. Sometimes, when someone offers something of a novel insight, Neji will purse his lips while he concentrates on the thought. She wonders, then, as her eyes trace the plush bow of his lips and her mind races over the possibilities, how _his_ mind works.

She tests him, sometimes, by speaking up and offering insight of her own. She likes the way his eyes leap to hers and hold, unblinking. She likes the way his hands shift into his sleeves, and wonders if he hides them because of her voice, because they _shake_.

How would he respond to mind games? Would he be a challenge, or a disappointment? Tenten licks her lips and watches the way his eyes flicker over her words, tracing each of them strictly, carefully, finding strengths wrapped in weaknesses. He accepts the insight politely, his manners intact; he also disbands it, systematically and ruthlessly, his words edged in barbs and founded criticisms that even Tenten had not considered.

He smiles, afterwards, as though the novelty of having to consider something amuses him.

She thinks him a welcome contender.

 

✧

 

Tenten knows that her feelings for Hyuga Neji are forbidden.

She is not a _child_ and she is not in denial. She accepts the information in the same way she accepts an enemy’s escape, with her chin lifted high and unflinching determination trailing down her iron spine. Giving up is not something her family or her team had ever taught her. Giving up is not in her blood.

To accept is not to give up.

It is a temporary parley, a moment suspended in time for as long as one allows it to.

Tenten enjoys her control; she will hold this moment for as long as needed before the mechanisms of her work play to her advantage. She has a mind crafted for and from battle; she knows her advantages. She knows her enemy. She cups her hands around acceptance and suspended time, and she watches Hyuga Neji’s eyes find her in crowds, and she waits.

There has never been a weapon Tenten could not wield with precision.

When the time comes and Tenten finds her slot, the space of suspended acceptance held aloft in her hands—callused and scarred and beautiful—will turn over and be replaced by Hyuga Neji’s admiration.

He will play right into her hands, willingly and readily, and she awaits him with hitched breath and a smile that _cuts_.


End file.
